Term Time Holiday Ban

[champagne]

So what do we do? Apart from the obvious, pull "johnny" out during term time, say he's sick and go anyway. Letter writing never has much effect, although makes me feel better. Petitons.....Suggestions on a postcard please.

[alpha-acid]

You will die if you don't go off-island on holiday: FACT.

 

You will die if you DO go off-island : FACT

 

Infact everyone dies

[Cronky]

On Manx Radio:

 

Fifteen thousand school days were lost to family vacations during the last academic year.

 

There are about 19000 kids in the Isle of Man. What's his problem?

[Lost Login]

The mother of those children being taken out of school at that time was I believe at that time a member of the board of education member and is currently the Education Minister!

I don't think Mrs Craine thought up this daft idea. She always talks good sense about kids. This policy seems to have been lifted straight from the UK by a civil servant who does not understand the family nature of this community.

I appreciate that but as the Minister she can surely amend the policy, after all she will be well aware it never did her kids any harm having a few days off.

 

What annoys me most is not the policy which as I said previously I am happy to ignore as I believe it is not worth the paper it is written on, but in the manner it has been done. Generally in the Island parents are very surportive of schools and many are active in raising funds. When I get a letter such as I have I think why should I bother. Basically all they are really doing is loosing a lot of goodwill

[Lonan3]

A couple of years ago we took the kids on a holiday to Rome. Part of the holiday (a few days) overlapped into term time. They spent much of it wandering around the Forum, Coliseum, Vatican Museum etc.

To be fair, their teachers were of the opinion that they probably learned more under those circumstances than they would have done in school.

[Lost Login]

On Manx Radio:

 

Fifteen thousand school days were lost to family vacations during the last academic year.

 

There are about 19000 kids in the Isle of Man. What's his problem?

 

14,351 between 5 & 19 at the last census. Ok some 16 year olds + will have left school but equally some 4 years olds will be at school. Either way works out at about 1 day a year on average which shows it is either it is not a real problem in terms of the number of days kids are having off, or if it is then it is limited to a certain percentage in which case it should have been those who are taking adavntage that should be targetted.

[Tugger]

Teachers find it disruptive though, don't they? I have plenty of sympathy for people whose jobs mean that they genuinely cannot go on vacation outside term time (although I think their numbers are relatively small) but not much for people who just do it because it's cheaper. Why can't you go skiing at half term, or in the Christmas or Easter holidays? That's not the same as having to take them across for a family funeral or wedding.

 

If it's unacceptable for the government to say you can't do it at all, then why isn't it unacceptable for them to put a ten day limit on absenteeism? Surely if parental discretion is what counts you should be able to take your kids away from school whenever you like.

[notbertie]

My advocate informs me that I won't have received this circular over the coming 18 years or so.

 

Suffice to say, our household finances can't take being forced into taking holidays at peak times - but perhaps it's too much to ask that a Manx Government department should understand the importance of sound financial management?

 

Taking a child out of a class in a GCSE year is going to damage the whole class, unless the vacant child is going to catch up in their own time - parents generally have the wherewithall to avoid this situation and Head Teachers have the wherewithall to advise appropriately.

 

A child in reception year, on the other hand, isn't going to cause the class to miss out at all (frankly, class R spend most of their year passing around bugs and taking days off anyway).

 

Policy should leave this discretion in the hands of Head Teachers. If there is a problem at a specific school, then the DoE can get involved (and 'support' the Head who hasn't the brains to enforce common sense).

 

Perhaps University student absences would be a more productive fish to fry - do we have numbers of DoE funded University drop-outs? If there was incentive for these kids to turn up to lectures, perhaps they'd pass their exams?

[Jimcalagon]

Taking a child out of a class in a GCSE year is going to damage the whole class

 

Utter bollocks

[ai_Droid]

Suffice to say, our household finances can't take being forced into taking holidays at peak times - but perhaps it's too much to ask that a Manx Government department should understand the importance of sound financial management?

 

I took my kids away TT week, found it much cheaper than other times because the off island travel is cheaper because of the volumes coming in, and it's not a UK holiday so you can get off peak deals.

 

I don't get the issue, you've got kids in school, you play around the school, not the other way around. You wont die if you don't lie on a beach for 2 weeks. Totally blown out of proportion this, you do not NEED a holiday.

[champagne]

Suffice to say, our household finances can't take being forced into taking holidays at peak times - but perhaps it's too much to ask that a Manx Government department should understand the importance of sound financial management?

 

I took my kids away TT week, found it much cheaper than other times because the off island travel is cheaper because of the volumes coming in, and it's not a UK holiday so you can get off peak deals.

 

I don't get the issue, you've got kids in school, you play around the school, not the other way around. You wont die if you don't lie on a beach for 2 weeks. Totally blown out of proportion this, you do not NEED a holiday.

 

this is wrong of you to say what we do or do not need and it's not the issue here. The issue is that we are being told by Government that we cant take our child out of school for the odd day without a heavy hand from "big brother". We are sensible, responsible parents and we should be allowed some flexibility in removing our children during term time. No-one is going to be daft enough to take a week off during GCSE time but an odd day here and there inorder to catch connecting flights or visit family should not be frowned upon.

[ai_Droid]

this is wrong of you to say what we do or do not need and it's not the issue here. The issue is that we are being told by Government that we cant take our child out of school for the odd day without a heavy hand from "big brother". We are sensible, responsible parents and we should be allowed some flexibility in removing our children during term time. No-one is going to be daft enough to take a week off during GCSE time but an odd day here and there inorder to catch connecting flights or visit family should not be frowned upon.

 

By taking your kids out for two weeks whenever you feel like it, you're disrupting the other kids. The teacher will have to spend time filling in those gaps, which is detracting from the work the rest of the class are doing. This might have been ok when class sizes were small, but that's not the case now, and it's clearly a problem. That's not heavy handed, or big brother, that's looking out for the interests of those parents who do what's best for all kids and not themselves and their addiction to cheap sun and sand.

[Jimcalagon]

Totally blown out of proportion this, you do not NEED a holiday.

 

Speak for yourself.

[monasqueen]

Time was, people could not afford to take holidays. When I was a kid, we got a week away, or maybe two, every other year. Transport was cheap, as my father worked on the railways, and we tended to go to a cheap caravan by a seaside location near railway connections. Always in the UK, of course, and during school holidays. We still enjoyed ourselves, and us kids learned a lot geographically and historically about the places we visited.

 

Perhaps people nowadays have too much spending power, and expect too much?

[ccm]

I think we'd have a better idea of the mindset of the posters on this topic if, at the bottom of their post, they could state whether or not they have children. It would appear that those with kids aren't happy about this and those without kids are

 

 

 

 

 

I have kids (there you go)